Ewan McGregor piled on the pounds rather than relying on prosthetics for his dual role in the new season of Fargo.

The 46-year-old star was in the best shape of his life when he was offered a role in the bleak FX crime drama series, as he had been going on long, intense runs around Scotland with Trainspotting 2 co-star Jonny Lee Miller while the pair were filming the sequel to Danny Boyle's original movie.

So when he got the call from Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley asking him to play brothers Emmit and Ray in the third season of the programme, McGregor hoped he could rely on prosthetics to fatten him up. But he was left sorely disappointed when Hawley insisted he had to put on weight for the gig.

“I ordered a massive dessert and started putting on weight from that second onward,” the actor recalled to Vanity Fair magazine. "It’s quite nice when you’re ordering - you can order whatever you like. But the truth is I would go to bed every night not feeling very great.

"I’m a small guy. I’m not really used to carrying weight. It doesn’t make you feel great. I like to feel fit and healthy. But it was effective. It worked."

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His shocking transformation was revealed when his character Ray climbed out of the bath naked as the season premiere of Fargo aired in America on Wednesday (19Apr17).

“You see my naked body,” he said of the scene. “Although I wear some padding for Ray to make him heavier, this scene had to justify that padding. It wouldn’t make sense for me to wear padding and not be fat when I got out of the bath. So when I got out of the bath, I was properly overweight for me."

Fargo, also starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and David Thewlis, airs Wednesdays in the USA.